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The call of the ocean

Department head Ann Bucklin speaks with us about marine science education for undergraduates, new hiring plans and how the sea grabbed her.

Ann Bucklin Photography by Daniel Buttrey

The Department of Marine Sciences includes biologists, physicists, chemists and geologists, and also practitioners of specialized fields such as marine genomics, marine meteorology and ocean optics. How does this interdisciplinary nature enrich your department?

In addition to our shared love of the sea, we all share a genuine appreciation for the joys of interdisciplinary research, scholarship, and teaching. We purposefully try not to put up brick walls between people in different disciplines, and we actively look for people who can transcend the disciplinary boundaries. Investigations at the interfaces of the traditional disciplines are hugely important in oceanography now; this is where the research investments are being made – and are really paying off – to generate new discoveries, new knowledge, and new understanding to help us meet the major environmental challenges facing the oceans today.

Quite unusually in the ocean sciences, our research and our curricula are interwoven with the social sciences. Our undergraduate students can choose from an array of social science courses, including marine- and maritime-related courses offered by other CLAS departments, e.g., geography, economics, history, anthropology and political science. Our goal is to give our majors real appreciation for the past, present and future roles of humans in the ocean ecosystem.

Your position at the Avery Point campus must make it easy to create human-ocean connections.

In fact, there is no way to leave humans out of the equation in studies of the coastal ocean, which is our focus. It helps that we are perched on the shores of Long Island Sound and the Marine Sciences Building looks like a ship in dry-dock – just about ready to launch! More importantly, our focus on the coastal ocean and coastal marine ecosystems means that understanding human impacts is absolutely essential. Long Island Sound is one of the most urbanized estuaries in the US, but we have indelibly and irreversibly shaped the landscape, life, and dynamics of our coastal regions throughout the world.

Marine Sciences has been approved for three new hires in this coming year. What kinds of researchers will you be looking for?

We will take advantage of the exceptional opportunity for a cluster faculty hire to expand our focus on climate science. The theme for our cluster hire is, “Climate and Human Alteration of Coastal Ecosystems” or CHACE. We have a shopping list of possible positions spanning the underlying disciplines of marine sciences, but our goal is to identify new faculty members who can move us to a new level in interdisciplinary studies of the coastal ocean. These may include a biogeochemical modeler, someone who studies marine food webs, or someone who studies storm events – it is exciting time for the department!

What role does teaching play in your department?

We’ve been really successful in recruiting world-class researchers who love teaching undergraduates. We’ve hired seven new faculty in the last seven years, and they’re all outstanding teachers. Heidi Dierssen, for example, who teaches “Introduction to Oceanography” to non-majors, routinely gets emails from her students saying, “You’ve changed my outlook on science and my career.”

Although most of our graduate students go on to academics, we also make sure to provide them with mentorship to guide them to any of the many careers that an advanced degree in oceanography prepares them for, whether in academia, government, nonprofit or corporate consulting jobs.

How did you get involved in marine science?

The reason most oceanographers I know do what they do is because at some point, the sea captured them. That’s what happened to me. I took a course in marine biology in my junior year at Oberlin. A scholarship to a summer course at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole closed the deal. My PhD research was done in the intertidal zone of northern California – I spent five years in hip boots in the surf in the middle of the night, collecting sea anemones. I loved (almost) every minute of it (except the monster rats), and thought that’s what I would do for the rest of my life.

Then in 1980, I went to sea for the first time. That’s what turned me into an oceanographer,

Whether it’s as a kid going on a sailboat, or on an ocean cruise, or doing a school activity like Project Oceanology – every marine scientist has had that moment when the sea got them and they decided they had to keep doing that, keep going back to sea.

Join us for a talk by Gina Barreca,2018 UCONN BOARD OF TRUSTEESDISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH

All great works of fiction, poetry and dramaâas well as texts forming mythologies, religions, national epics to heroic sagasâhave loneliness at the heart of their narrative. From Persephone to Peter Pan, from âFrankensteinâ to âFrozen,â the stories we pass along are saturated with unwilling isolation.âOnly around half of Americans say they have meaningful, daily face-to-face social interactions,â according to a 2017 study. A former U.S. Surgeon General argues that âWe live in the most technologically connected age in the history of civilization, yet rates of loneliness have doubled since the 1980s.â We need more than social media. We need social contact. We need community. How can we break through the loneliness barrier? Being alone when in need of companionship is more than sad; itâs an epidemic.Chronic loneliness is as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes per day. We need to change our national story and, often, our personal ones as well.Even the concept of the âlone wolfâ is a myth. Wolves hunt in packs.

Reception to follow.

For more information about this event, or if you are an individual who requires special accommodation to participate, please contact the CLAS Deanâs Office at (860) 486-2713.

A liberal arts and sciences degree prepares students with the tools they need to excel across a wide range of careers. Given the number of options available to you, it can be overwhelming to narrow down career choices. Attending CLAS Career Night will provide you exposure to career opportunities for CLAS students.

This semesterâs focus will be on research-based careers. During this event you will engage with CLAS alumni, learn about various occupations, and gain insight about how to best prepare for your future career.

The McNair Scholars Program and the Office of Undergraduate Research invite you to join us for a brown bag research seminar.

Birds, Bacteria, and Bioinformatics: Why Evolutionary Biology is the Best

Sarah Hird, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

This series is open to all undergraduate and graduate students, and is designed especially for students conducting (or interested in conducting) STEM research. These seminars are opportunities to learn about research being pursued around campus, to talk with faculty about their path into research, and to ask questions about getting involved in research.

About CLAS

The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is the academic core of learning and research at UConn. We are committed to the full spectrum of academics across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. We give students a liberal arts and sciences education that empowers them with broad knowledge, transferable skills, and an ability to think critically about important issues across a variety of disciplines.